The Foundation of Following Jesus
Part 1 – Intaking God’s Word
2 Timothy 3:16-17
January 9, 2011
Introduction
Today we begin a four-week series on getting into God’s Word to help us follow Jesus like we should – and that doesn’t happen in the lives of nearly enough believers.
My hope is that as we explore these four areas that God will really speak to you and move you to adopt a mindset that sees the Scriptures as being essential to living the life that Jesus blesses and uses for His purposes.
Why am I hitting this whole issue of getting into the Word so hard?
Because that’s what I’m supposed to do because that’s what all preachers are supposed to do, right?
Besides, the Gideons are here and I need to impress them that we actually talk about the Bible here, right?
God: The foundation passage for today is
2 Timothy 3:16-17 –
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
I’m not going to talk about everything this passage addresses today, but I want to use it as the foundation for what I want to communicate, which is the importance of getting God’s Word in our lives.
Some things to keep in mind from this passage that I want to mention briefly:
Scripture is from God, not man.
That alone should be enough to make us want to make sure it’s part of our lives.
Scripture is used by God to shape our character.
Scripture is the basis for training for ministry.
Keeping these three things in mind, let’s look at three things that the Word of God can do to help us in our desire to follow Jesus 24/7.
The Word…
Helps us learn about Jesus ACCURATELY.
The fact is that there are lots of different ideas about who Jesus is.
I tried to download a video from Youtube that had a kind of “man on the street” interview segment asking different people who they thought Jesus was or is.
Of course, you got a few who said things like, “He’s my Lord and Savior,” or, “He’s the Son of God,” and all sorts of biblically based answers.
But others were like, “He is spiritual concept for Christians.”
“I’m not even sure he really existed.”
“A made-up story.”
“A first-century philosopher.”
“I don’t care who he was.”
And right here in our area, you will find lots of different opinions about who Jesus is.
One of the ideas I come across around here is the idea that Jesus is this non-judgmental spiritual guru who loves everybody too much to send them to hell for doing bad.
Personally, I like that idea. It’s nice and comfortable.
Unfortunately, it’s not biblical.
There is also the idea that Jesus doesn’t really care what goes on in a person’s life or what they believe as long as they’re sincere.
Again, those are nice ideas, but they’re wrong. Why, because they’re not accurate portrayals of who Jesus himself said He was or what the eyewitness accounts in the gospels say about Him.
Folks, the Church of Jesus is filled with people who don’t know the Jesus of the Bible.
Their ideas about Jesus come from society, what others who don’t believe the Bible say about Jesus, what they read in Time, Newsweek, or U.S. News and World Report, what they see on the History Channel, or more likely, what they would like to believe, because it fits their personal philosophy about life and they don’t want a Jesus who would get on their case about it.
And these are the people you and I see every day.
The Jesus of society and convenience won’t save a person’s soul. The Jesus of society and convenience can’t bring the forgiveness of God and eternal life in heaven.
The Jesus of the Bible can – and will, for every person who will call on Him for it.
Folks, can you imagine the scene before God when someone steps up to Him and says, “Well, God, I thought Jesus was a lot more tolerant of my lifestyle, so you should judge me based on what I thought of Jesus, okay?”
I don’t think that’s going to happen.
God’s going to say, “I don’t care what you thought. I care about what I actually said in My Word – and that’s what you’ll be judged against.”
Folks, we need the Scriptures so we can learn about Jesus accurately.
We don’t want to live a lifetime of ignorance, because in this case, ignorance is not bliss.
When we learn about Jesus accurately, we can see His character, and we can ask that question I’ve been bringing up lately – “What would Jesus do?” because we will have a more accurate knowledge of how He reacted in similar circumstances.
Disciples can’t live a “guess-work” theology about Jesus.
Disciples need to learn about Jesus accurately. And that happens as we get into God’s Word.
Second, the Word…
Helps us to live for Jesus COMPLETELY.
It’s in the Bible that we find that Jesus isn’t interested in a lukewarm relationship with His people.
He says very directly that He wants us to live for Him with every part of our lives – our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
He wants us to live for Him in how we handle our money, how we handle our families, how we handle our free time, how we handle our political involvement, how we handle our jobs and businesses, and everything else.
He wants us to live for Him at the risk of alienating ourselves from our loved ones.
He wants us to life for Him at the risk of actually dying for Him, as more than 400 people will today.
And then His Word helps us to learn how to live for Jesus completely.
His commands, teachings, and His example all serve to help us live for Him completely.
They serve to fill us in on the joy and fulfillment that comes to those who do that, and they serve to encourage us when living for Jesus gets tough – and maybe unbearable at times as they remind us that He is always with us through the Holy Spirit.
But we can’t live for Jesus completely if we don’t learn about Him accurately.
And third, the Word…
Helps us to serve Jesus EFFECTIVELY.
We serve Jesus effectively by understanding three things:
- His priorities
We talked last week that His three main priorities were doing the Father’s will, spending time with the Father, and helping the “lost” get “found.”
If we can make these our priorities as well, we go a long way to serving Jesus effectively.
We also work to serve Him effectively when we examine the Scriptures to see…
- His methods
How did Jesus do stuff?
How did He go about teaching and equipping His leaders?
He did he minister to different types of people?
How did He point people to the Father?
How did He deal with erroneous ideas regarding God and the Scriptures?
This is important to learn because I think if we do things Jesus’ way, we’ll be a lot more successful at reaching people and helping them become sold-out followers of His.
Another way the Bible helps us serve Jesus effectively is that it show us…
- His example
This kinda ties in with the other two we just covered, but I want to just point out other things we can learn:
How did react to “sinners” who approached Him?
How did He handle interruptions (and He had plenty)?
How did He respond to different types of people?
How did He align His priorities?
How did He approach suffering – especially His own?
These are all questions we can answer as we seek to learn about Jesus through the Scriptures.
And as we answer them, we can serve Him effectively.
So hopefully we can all see why it’s so important to get into the Word of God.
And now we need to look at ways to get God’s Word into our lives so we can gain all these benefits and advantages.
I’ve mentioned all of these from time to time, but here’s another opportunity for you to get a grip on getting into the Word.
Four ways to intake God’s Word:
1. Hear it.
This generally happens in church, although it can also be done in small groups and Sunday School and such.
You can also hear the Bible on the radio, on cd’s, and on the internet.
That’s a great way to get God’s Word pouring into you.
But let me tell you, listening to the Bible is the least effective way to intake God’s Word, because you retain less of it, unless you really, really, really, really, listen a lot.
But by all means, do it if you can. If you want some websites to go to where you can listen for free, from almost any version you can think of, let me know and I’ll give you two right away.
A second way to intake God’s Word is to…
2. Read it.
Pretty obvious, right?
But I’d be willing to bet, if I were a betting man, that the VAST majority of Christians don’t read the Bible outside of what they might read during a church service.
Read it. Regularly. Systematically.
It doesn’t have to be every day, but it should be at least a few times a week.
Read through the New Testament this year. Or the entire Bible.
Read it cover to cover or read it in a way that arranges the readings in the order the events happened.
But read it. And not just here.
During my time in the Gideons, we were encouraged to read through the Bible every year, and they gave us a little reading schedule that we could check off so we could keep track.
YouVersion.com has many different reading programs that can help you throughout the year, as well as a check-off system to help you stay on track.
I can’t recommend that site highly enough.
A third way we can get God’s Word into our life is to…
3. Study it.
I’m going to be focusing more in this next week, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time here on it.
Studying is basically going beyond hearing and reading it, and digging into it to learn more about what the Bible says about any give topic, doctrine, person, or Bible book.
It gets below the surface and looks at how the Bible puts stuff together and how we come to the beliefs we have, both as individuals, as churches, and even denominations.
Study is the key to getting below the surface.
Next week we’re going to look at the why’s and some how’s of studying the Bible.
Another way to get God’s Word into your life is to…
4. Memorize it.
Memorize short (or long) passages of Scripture that speak to you as you read and study.
Write out the passage on cards or post-its, or whatever, and carry them around with you so you can review them and pray through them.
“But I can’t memorize Scripture – it’s too hard.”
You’ve memorized all sorts of other stuff. Your address, your Social Security number, your girlfriend’s phone number…
You can memorize Scripture.
So you can listen to God’s Word, you can read God’s Word, you can study God’s Word, and you can memorize God’s Word.
But for these to really do the work within us Scripture is meant to do (transform us to be more like Jesus), we need to add:
- Application
This where we move from being just hearers and being doers.
Two weeks from today we’re really going to hammer this is what keeps us from being the hypocrites so many Christians are accused of being and that some of them really are.
Application is putting the Word of God into action in our lives.
It’s that other word that can be a stumbling block for some: obedience – doing what the Bible says and not doing what it says not to do.
The next thing we need to add is…
- Meditation
The most basic definition of meditation is just “thinking deeply” on a passage of Scripture.
You ask questions about the passage and how it relates to you in your situation or how you can use it to minister to someone else.
You ask the “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” and “how” questions that you also ask when you’re studying the Bible.
It’s how we take the head knowledge and make it heart knowledge, giving God’s Word the opportunity to do that transforming work it needs to do if we’re going to be Christ-like, sold out disciples of Jesus.
You: My hope is that at least one of these four ways of intaking God’s Word has resonated with you.
If that’s you, then take that way or ways and do something to get it going THIS WEEK.
If it’s listening, go to a place like biblegateway.com or YouVersion.com and start listening. Or go the Anchors of Faith tomorrow and get the Bible on CD.
If it’s reading, start today by getting a plan in place that will help you accomplish what you feel God wants you to do.
If it’s studying, then come visit with me this week and I’ll give you some ideas, and make sure you’re here next week as we talk about that some more.
If it’s memorizing, pick a passage and write it out today and put it somewhere you can see it all the time or keep it in your pocket or purse.
A great passage to start with is the one we used as the foundation for our time today.
We: Folks, we need to be people who are not Christians in name only.
We’ve already got more than enough of those in the world.
The way to avoid being that is by getting the Word of God in your life in such a way that God can use it to transform you to be more like Jesus.
Can you imagine what it would be like if every one of us here committed to making that happen this year?
I believe God would not only continue to change the culture of this church to focus on His priorities, but He would move to dramatically change individual lives in this church.
Those two things will enable God to use us to bring glory to Him as we do the work He gave us to make disciples of all nations.
Please don’t take this lightly.
Let God drive this to the very core of your being. And get ready to watch Him work.
Let’s pray.
